“Past Life” starts with the most important piece of information we could possibly learn: How the alien we now know as Jonah acquired the body of Julian McMahon. For about 20 years, the being had been in the body of an older man, positioning himself in the 1930s as a Dust Bowl preacher straight out of Carnivàle. In 1957, he’s dying in a pulpy lab—and a young Australian doctor named Jonah shows up to treat him. The older version of our villain apologizes for the presumably painful process of having his mind replace the doctor’s—it should go down smoother, but “Technology just isn’t there yet.”
This line is pretty funny, and in keeping with the hammier spirit of the episode. In 1979, Jonah shows up in a powder blue shirt with a ridiculous lapel, visiting Leslie’s father to inspire a new religion. McMahon gets to mug like a used car salesman as Jonah turns on his light—just before meeting a young Leslie.
Back in the present, Pride is similarly easily bamboozled. The parents decide to split up and take responsibility for their own children, even though their children are all together and working as a makeshift superhero team, which is insane and stupid. At least most of the other parents take a back seat this episode, with the exception of the Wilders, who are embroiled in the reignited Darius subplot, and the Deans, who are embroiled in Frank being an idiot.
Catherine orders a hit of sorts on Livvie, who has gone to the DA’s office to try to clear Darius of Destiny’s murder—without asking her husband. The aborted hit goes down at the hospital, when Tamar is bringing her baby home and Alex has showed up to convince them to trust him. Geoffrey, meanwhile, is still mad at this wife, and takes the time to visit Tamar to assure her that he wants to make good on his deal with Darius. She tells him she’s going to start her own crime empire. At the very least, I hope she’s more savvy than Livvie, who outs a dude named AWOL as the one who shot at them—without realizing he’s a dirty cop. (Also, I get that she wants to clear Darius’ name, but this feels like it would make more sense if he weren’t dead.)
Meanwhile, over at the church, Frank continues to be an absolute moron, and has completely melted down in the wake of murdering Destiny Gonzalez’s brother. Though he asks Leslie for help, it seems like Frank is in the lurch here—theoretically the dissolution of Pride means the dissolution of the tools the members have used to cover up their other crimes. Leslie eventually calls Flores to clean up after her husband as one last job, and, in a setup straight out of a ’70s paranoia conspiracy thriller (or Veronica Mars), Frank takes photographs of the meeting in order to frame his wife for murder and take over the church. It’s clear that his motivation is maintaining his tenuous hold on people who respect him (his audience, as he accidentally calls them), but he’s just too pathetic to pay attention to for extended periods of time.
Thankfully, the kids get to do some fun stuff this episode: a heist on the swanky hotel where Darius died. Alex brings Livvie in to the plan and breaks into the penthouse to access the hotel’s footage, which is another good opportunity for the Runaways to confront the lives they’ve left behind—and the lives they could probably get back now, if they so chose. (Chase, especially, points out that they might be able to go home, though Alex rightly notes that their parents are all murderers.) The best part of the episode is a very funny scene where Chase and Gert have to somehow plausibly pretend to be newlyweds while fighting about Gert’s secret college plans in front of a hotel employee.
Gert, of course, wants to go to Smith, and didn’t tell anyone. Whether or not this is plausible (Gert would be an excellent Smith student), I appreciate it as a source of humor—and a way to get Chase and Gert to productively fight, because Gregg Sulkin and Ariela Barer have fun chemistry specifically when they’re at odds. Alex reconnects with Livvie while this is happening, and discovers that his mother was the one who killed Darius, just before Nico and Molly arrive to tell everyone that they need to run from the hotel staff. Though there’s a brief Breakfast Club moment of everyone running through the hallways, Molly ends up heroically staying behind to delay the men chasing them while the others are once again on the run. And though she expects to just be lectured by hotel security, she’s met by Flores, an angry man with no reason to want to return her to anyone safely. Time for another rescue mission!
Stray observations
- “Past Life” is written by Kendall Rogers and directed by Anna Mastro.
- Dale says “l’chaim” as Pride toasts to the end of their organization. Are the Yorkes Jewish, or is he just doing an affected bit?
- Molly asks to come on a walk with Nico. Nico: “Can you be like, 60% less chipper?” Molly: “No.”
- Runaways Dad Of The Day: Geoffrey. There’s very little dad material in this episode, unfortunately, so I had to choose between Geoffrey and Victor—and Geoffrey, at least, is trying to make amends with the people he’s wronged. Kind of. I guess.
17 Comments
I understand Pride wanting to be free of each other, but it literally makes no sense to handle their kids separately when their kids are all together. I know why they did the Jonah flashbacks, but I’m undecided if it was necessary. It puts gives more information to the audience than the characters again, and this season was already a lot of characters catching up to what some characters and the audience already know. Like I forgot Niko didn’t know Jonah killed Amy, because I’m pretty sure we knew that last season. It does ramp up the tension in the rest of the season, but it’s still annoying waiting for characters to catch on.
I’m really enjoying the binge. This cast is incredible and deserve more acclaim. They all have chemistry and hold their own
Yeah, the Yorkes are jewish. It was mentioned at some point in season 1 when Gert is defending her parents. Also Ariel Barer is jewish AND Mexican, so there’s that fun fact. I thought Molly staying behind was kind of stupid because there were a million other ways to stall them, but I guess at this point I just accept that my kids are not the best decision makers, and I still love them despite the mess they usually cause.
As a sidenote on the Yorkes front, something I realize has been bugging me is that Molly and Gert seem to be most hostile towards their parents while the Yorkes are almost objectively the least worst of the parents. It’s to the point I’m rolling my eyes at the girls and mentally telling to just give their parents a chance.
I think by being the better parents they instilled Molly and Gert with a stricter code of morals. Alex knew his mother was a hard a** lawyer, who may have done business deals that weren’t completely ethical. Chase’s father was abusive. Nico’s mother was a control freak, who ignored Nico’s pain. Karolina is torn about her feelings for Jonah, so I’m not sure she can process what she feels about Leslie. I can buy that the kids who thought their parents were semi-hippies trying to save the world and then found out they were murderers would have a harder time forgiving them.
Ditto regarding Gert and Molly’s rage against their parents.Molly and Karolina keep mentioning their parents being the people who birthed them, not ya know the people who have raised them (specifically the Yorkes and idiot Frank, at least he was an attentive parent unlike late arriving/come leave Earth with me Jonah!) it’s just something that has hit my ear wrong repeatedly.
Disagree on Molly. Molly’s parents were around long enough that she probably has some memories of them and the Yorkes not only made no attempt to hide the fact that she was adopted but seem to have have helped her remember her parents. Molly’s hostility makes perfect sense once she finds out that PRIDE murdered her parents (and she doesn’t know which parents or parents specifically). For all she knows the Yorkes were the one who did the act. We know that it wasn’t them but I don’t know if Molly does.
Yeah, it seems weird to me, too. Molly and Gert know factually that the Yorkeses were trying to escape Pride and take them with them. They also just saw the Yorkeses successfully attack the spaceship, so they know the Yorkeses were taking specific action. I can’t remember if they know that the initial murder was sprung on the parents and then used to blackmail them into continuing on, but it shouldn’t be hard to figure out that the Yorkeses were in over their heads.
That is SO true. The Yorkes would be the most likely to help them.
I really liked that they established that the Real!Jonah actually seemed to be a good person as it made what happened even more tragic.Also way to continue to be a dick even after death Glow!Jonas. Was it really necessary to leave a message to Karo that all those teens essentially died just so that he could continue being around her.
Alex’s characterization in this episode was puzzling. First of all, I would have liked them have kept Livvy up as a topic before just randomly bringing her back in this episode. But then I also couldn’t understand why he seemed to his father so much yet hesitate when seeing that it was actually his mother. It just feels like there is a very ill-defined family dynamic there which makes this storyline feel weird.
Alex knows his father killed someone and put the blame on Darius, so he can see his father as a murderer of a friend. He saw his mother a a lawyer who kept her hands pretty clean. Plus, I don’t think he thought his mother had that close a connection to Darius. Just that his father had screwed Darius once and would do so again.
Yeah, it seemed like Alex was clearly over Livvy in post-Darius death episodes. What happened to his computer being the only lady for him? The dialogue for him was oddly inconsistent.
Also, I wish they had come up with a better plan. The whole point of the hotel heist was that Alex is the master hacker. Why didn’t he actually hack into the reservation database and ensure that the penthouse sweet had no one in it? The kids could have been caught another way.
That was a really weak Australian accent used by Julian McMahon.(Checks IMDb)Oooops.
I first saw him on Nip/Tuck, back when it was on TV, and I had no Idea he’s australian.
Wow, the Jonah/Leslie thing just gets creepier every time they show it. He was basically a freaky pedophile who created a whole religion in order to groom her. Has it been mentioned on the show if she birthed Karolina or not?
“I get that she wants to clear Darius’ name, but this feels like it would make more sense if he weren’t dead”After people die, their name is all that’s left. I’ve seen this on a few programs, including DEATH IN PARADISE – where an old one night stand returns to the island, discovers his one night stand died in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. Their drunken night together was her alibi, but he’d gone back home…
I get the trope. This time, it helped establish Livvie as Trustworthy to the team.